Reputation Management and Review Site-itis; Do Good Work and the Rest Will Follow

I can see your underwear. That’s right. And so can everyone else. In these transparent days you have never been more exposed, as companies and medical practices been called to meet their maker. With the advent of online review sites like Trip Advisor for travel, Yelp, Chowhound (and gazillions more for restaurants),Yahoo Local, etc. etc., if you are a B to C service business especially , plan on being in the spotlight. What a pain in the belly. Better start exercising.

In working with doctors this issue has become the big pink elephant in the room. A few years ago, I had an experience that brought this all to light. In searching for clients, I’ll often plug their name into a Google search just to see what comes up. On this particular day I was targeting a few Ob-Gyn practices in my area , doctors that I’ve known for years who I’d worked with in my last incarnation. In the medical field in particular, online review sites have become fast, furious and powerful. They overshadow and outrank even the most sophisticated of medical practice websites, and often one will have to sift through 12 or 13 before getting to a website, if in fact there is a website at all. (Another story for another day). This doctor was a pioneer in his field; was known for his cutting edge Vitamin D testing long before Vitamin D deficiencies became a buzzword, and for years had a great reputation and was very difficult to get an appointment with because he was so in demand. No more. One look at the organic search engine results and it was clear that the online review sites had this doctor by the jugular. The very top of the search engine’s review did not even need clicking into; it was on the face as clear as day, calling out to all who might be searching for a good Ob-Gyn in their area, or who may have been referred to this particular doctor and just needed to check her out online first. Not good. Not anywhere close to good. As the adage goes: one bad review can skew 100 great ones. This doctor needed damage control in a big way. Seth Godin says it well: ”The web changes everything it touches, sometimes in significant ways. Travelers ranted about poor service for a generation, but once the internet makes it easy to rank and sort and connect, the service has no choice but to change. Some businesses see Yelp and others as a tax, a burden they have to pay attention to in order to stay relevant, and they grumble about it. Others see these sites as the opportunity of a lifetime, a chance to deliver service (which takes guts and care, more than money) to get ahead.”

Hence the advent of yet a new service, which we offer as well: Reputation Management, where all stops are pulled out to suppress the bad and build the new and good on top of it in an effort to do damage control. Does it work? Yes, as long as there’s a good balance between a crappy online review and plenty of good service to temper it with. If you are under servicing and performing sub par service as your new norm, then sorry…all the Reputation Management in the world is not going to dig your dying business out of the black hole. Can you spell BANDAID? But hey! There’s the rub! What is your alternative?

Wonderful service! Out performance. Under promising and over delivering. Delighting your customers. Now more than ever the bar has been raised and people are not only watching but being invited to participate in a way they never could before on your companies success. Prior to the internet, this news was only available via word of mouth or by calling consumer protection agencies. Now it’s at the consumers fingertips and can fly much faster and spread much broader. Rather than seeing this as a threat, why not look at it as an opportunity for free PR? Take advantage of these sites and challenge your business to be viewed on Google and all the relevant review sites with 5 stars and glowing reviews. This is more effective marketing than you could ever pay for, and it’s free. The only cost is your standards, and living up to them.

Make sure you are aware of the review sites in your particular field, whether it be B to B or B to C. And while you’re at it, google yourself every now and then. It’s just as important as running a credit check on yourself.

Digital Marketing Strategist, speaker and blogger, Suzen Pettit has been in marketing for the past 27 years wearing various hats. Founder of OMAGinarium, (an acronym for Online Marketing and Growth), Suzen’s specialty is getting small companies and doctors FOUND and helping them stay “sticky” with online marketing and website traffic strategies, social media marketing, optimized websites, SEO, blogging, and content marketing. Suzen has helped dozens of small companies, entrepreneurs and medical practices stand out, get their businesses on the map, and attract more website traffic and warm leads.

When not working hard for her clients, Suzen can be found blogging and providing content for the Patch hyper-locals, Mashable, Founders Space, Create Hype, and Steamfeed, as well as speaking on topics geared to online business growth. Suzen was recently voted #3 from Voiceboks.com Top 10 Tech and Interne Savvy Blogs of 2014, and was featured in the August issue of Tribal Woman.

That’s What She Said

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Suzen is a great mind for your business. After spending 2 decades as a senior corporate marketing exec it is refreshing to work with someone who is agile, smart and unbounded. Suzen brought a fresh perspective to our business on many levels; adjusting our lenses with regard to driving web traffic, leveraging social media, creating new and different tools designed to “spread” naturally through the internet, and ultimately increasing walk-ins. She is also a groovy and edgy chick who isn…

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“Last nights EWN event “Rock Your Website to the Top of Google” ROCKED ! As a long time member of EWN, last nights event was one of the most memorable for walking out with lots of ammo. Suzen filled every inch of her talk with useful information and moved things along at a pace that kept everyone in the room stimulated, inquisitive and wanting more…glad to hear she has a webinar coming up in January. Great job, thanks Suzen!…”